The Federal Government on Monday flagged off the School-Based Management Committee -School Improvement Programme (SBMC-SIP) in Kano with take-off grant of N2.8 billion.
Flagging-off the programme, the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, said that the programme was one of the effective government engagement and collaboration strategies for forging linkages and partnerships with stakeholders in the delivery of education in Nigeria.
…high oil revenue does not equal better jobs or better … – Osinbajo(Opens in a new browser tab)
“At basic education level, the SBMC-SIP is seen as a milestone because of its focus on the school community members who are the real owners of basic education.
“The programme is also a home-grown initiative aimed at addressing national aspirations and meeting global expectations through the provision of qualitative functional education free of charge, to all children of school-going age,” he explained.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the minister was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Mr. Sunny Echono.
He said that the Federal Government was aware that inadequate funding was at the centre of the challenges that are facing not only the basic education, but the entire education sector.
Adamu called on all stakeholders to support the journey to revamping the education sector in Nigeria and enjoined the states to re-double their commitments to improve education in their imperative states through SBMC.
Meet Festus Keyamo, Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs(Opens in a new browser tab)
Earlier, the Executive Secretary of Universal Basic Education Commission, Dr. Hameed Bobboi, said that no nation could sustain a robust, functional and qualitative basic education without the meaningful and strategic involvement of its citizenry.
He said that the need for instituting the SBMC-SIP was therefore to put up a strategy for school development whereby community initiated self-help projects would be implemented by the SBMCs.
Bobboi also said that the commission had instituted many other programmes in order to retool the basic education process.
“As the nation is aware, just last month, the commission signed an MoU with Commonwealth of Learning(COL) for the implementation of open schooling programme with target on out-of-school children.
“We have also commenced the implementation of second chance education programmes for adolescent girls and married women, while our plans for introducing the community cluster learning centers for girls have reached advanced stage,” he said.
He then appreciated the sterling effort of the traditional and religious leaders in this struggle as well as the efforts of the development partners including UNICEF, DFID, the world Bank, USAID and SUBEBs for supporting the initiative.
In a remark, Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje said that the state government had introduced free and compulsory education in the state to reduce out-of-school children.
He said that the state government had constituted a committee on remodelling Almajiri System of Education in the state.
Ganduje restated his administration’s commitment to boost and revamp the education sector in the state.
The governor said SBMCs was a Government policy set up to encourage communities to take ownership of schools in order to curb vandalism, truancy and support Government efforts for quality education.
Methodist Prelate scores Abia low on development(Opens in a new browser tab)
Malam Bello Kagara, Director Mobilisation of UBEC, said that the commission approved N2.8 billion for immediate take-off of the programme.
He said that 2,505 communities would benefit from the programme with total classrooms output of 5,010 at an average of two classrooms per project.
According to him, the estimation was on construction only, but that some communities opted for supply of furniture, renovation, completion of abandoned buildings and purchase of teaching materials.(NAN)
Vanguard